Several kinds of bacteria can give you an upset stomach. Here is how to steer clear of the worst offenders, and what to do if they do make it through

Many people in the modern world, it’s probably fair to say, do not take food poisoning particularly seriously. Yes, most folks wash their hands after handling raw chicken and use different chopping boards for beef and green beans – but who among us can honestly say we’ve never used the same tongs for an entire barbecue or left a storage box of cooked rice on the sideboard for a couple of hours? Ignore that rhetorical question for a moment, though – before you comment that of course everyone should do all those things, let’s talk about what’s happening in your body when it all goes horribly wrong.

At the risk of stating the obvious, food poisoning occurs when you eat food contaminated with harmful bacteria, viruses or toxins – but that doesn’t mean it always works the same way. “Some bacteria, such as Bacillus cereus – sometimes found in reheated rice – produce toxins before the food is eaten, meaning they can cause symptoms such as sudden vomiting within hours,” says Dr Masarat Jilani, an NHS specialist who regularly manages children and adults with food poisoning. Bacillus cereus also produces another type of toxin in the small intestine, which can cause diarrhoea. “Others, such as Salmonella and E. coli, act after you’ve eaten and often cause longer-lasting symptoms through inflammation of the gut.”

An early flu season, a new variant and poor takeup of vaccines leave the already vulnerable health service in a dangerous position

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

You might be feeling stressed out seeing the headlines about “super flu” and comparing the current winter health challenges with 2020 and Covid. Amid all the noise, it’s difficult to know how bad this flu really is – and how much is political spin. I should start by saying “super flu” is not a scientific term or one used by any academics or clinicians I work with. It’s a colloquial phrase that’s been used by various NHS England bosses and taken up by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Keir Starmer.

This year, a couple of factors have come together to make it a harder flu season for hospitals to manage. First, flu has arrived earlier than previous years. This isn’t unique to the UK: it’s the same picture across the US, Canada, Japan, Germany – basically the northern hemisphere going into winter. This is in the context of multiple viruses circulating such as Covid and rhinoviruses, which means patients could be fighting one or more viruses at the same time and are more susceptible to getting sicker from influenza.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Fit Forever: Wellness for midlife and beyond
On Wednesday 28 January 2026, join Annie Kelly, Devi Sridhar, Joel Snape and Mariella Frostrup, as they discuss how to enjoy longer and healthier lives, with expert advice and practical tips. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Apollo theatre, London
Mischief Theatre return to the am-dram battlefield, turning the Victorian tale into a blizzard of bruised egos and expertly timed farce

In the interval, I hear a newcomer to Mischief Theatre’s enduring “goes wrong” concept ask if these comic symphonies of am-dram mishaps ever get stale. On the contrary: in the first half of this Dickensian foul-up, much of the pleasure comes from watching the company spring-load a very familiar crop of gags ready to explode after the break.

Long-term Mischief watchers will guess, for example, that when a Maltesers box is dropped during rehearsals inside the model box for the Cornley Polytechnic Players’ A Christmas Carol, it will end up as a giant-sized component of the set. They will know that the rivalry between supercilious director Chris and bombastic actor Robert, fond of essaying the classics in the nude, will result in crazed feats of sabotage when the production gets under way. And they can be sure that dim-witted Dennis, who thinks he is auditioning for the role of “Frog Cratchit” after seeing the Muppets’ musical as research, will well and truly cook everyone’s goose.

The French fashion designer’s lavish Mediterranean villa was frequented by everyone from Dalí to Garbo to Stravinsky to Churchill. It has now been lovingly restored – with a thrillingly bolstered library

It is the place where Salvador Dalí painted The Enigma of Hitler, a haunting landscape featuring a giant telephone receiver that seems to be crying a tear over a cutout picture of the Fuhrer. Conceived in 1939, the work seems to anticipate war. It is also the place where Winston Churchill penned parts of his multi-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and painted its dappled-light view. Somerset Maugham would visit, too, as well as novelist Colette, composer Igor Stravinsky and playwright Jean Cocteau, partaking in lunches that lasted all day and night, with debates and discussions around artistic ideas.

This place is La Pausa: the Mediterranean villa in the hills of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, once owned by husband-and-wife writing duo Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson, followed by French fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who had it rebuilt from scratch at the end of the 1920s. She later sold it to an American publishing couple, Emery and Wendy Reves.

Timothée Chalamet’s live-wire striver using ping pong as his ticket out of normie American life is just one of many wonders in this extraordinarily rich tale
• The best films of 2025 in the UK
• More on the best culture of 2025

When reports started to emerge that Timothée Chalamet was going to play a ping pong champion in a film called Marty Supreme, the world (including this correspondent) rolled its eyes. Was Hollywood’s most annoying actor going to go for broke in what promised to be the most irritating film of all time? Well I am here to hold up my hand and say that first impressions couldn’t have been more wrong. Marty Supreme is one of the most exciting, indeed sensational films of the year, and if the Guardian film critics’ poll wasn’t a democracy, many of us would made it No 1 by some distance.

For it turns out that Marty Supreme is a character drama of quite remarkable richness, its excitement and sensation deriving from the nervous energy of its protagonist – who is indeed a ping pong player called Marty – but plying his trade in the decidedly non-quirky early 1950s where our hero, played by Chalamet, is essentially trying to use this non-traditional sport to plot a way out of the dullness and grind of his normie life, where he is on track to become a manager of a shoe store. Marty (whose last name is not actually Supreme, but the amusingly alliterative Mauser) is a pretty dislikable individual: happy to abandon a girl he gets pregnant, throw a fit when he loses a match, and think he can talk his way out of any kind of difficulty. But such is his verve, charisma and never-say-die attitude, he carries you with him.

After years as Hollywood’s romcom darling, Hudson is putting music at the centre of her career – and after her show-stealing turn in Song Sung Blue, the Oscar buzz is growing

The first voice I hear when I enter the hotel room to meet Kate Hudson belongs to her 21-year-old son, Ryder, who speaks from the end of a phone: “Love you, Mum!”

Doesn’t everyone? You don’t have to be related to Hudson to consider her a joyous proposition – a great performer who hasn’t yet made a great film. It was a quarter-century ago in Almost Famous, her breakthrough picture, that she first proved she could hoist a movie out of the doldrums while making the task appear as effortless as blow-drying her hair. Without her performance as Penny Lane, the rock’n’roll muse who describes herself as a “band-aid” rather than a groupie, Cameron Crowe’s dopey valentine to the 1970s of his youth would have been Almost Forgettable.

Naveed Akram previously known to security agencies, prime minister says. His gun-owning father, Sajid, was shot dead by police at the scene

• Follow the latest live updates on the Bondi beach shooting

• Victims named so far

• What we know so far about the Bondi terror attack

The alleged gunmen behind the Bondi beach attack are a father-son duo suspected of using legally obtained firearms to commit the massacre, according to police.

Naveed Akram, 24, was arrested at the scene and taken to a Sydney hospital with critical injuries. His 50-year-old father, who the Sydney Morning Herald first reported to be Sajid Akram, was shot dead by police.

Family say al-Ahmed ‘doesn’t discriminate’ and would have done anything to save lives during the attack

• Victims named so far

• What we know about the Bondi terror attack

When Ahmed al-Ahmed tackled and wrested a gun from an alleged shooter at Bondi beach, he was simply thinking that he “couldn’t bear to see people dying”, his cousin says.

Less than a day later, al-Ahmed remains in a critical but stable condition at St George hospital in Sydney. Since the attack, the 43-year-old father of two young girls has catapulted to international fame and been hailed as a hero by the Australian prime minister, the New South Wales premier and the US president.

Photos, maps, drone footage and video show how terror attack that left at least 15 dead unfolded on Sunday evening

• Warning: contains content that readers may find distressing

At about 5pm, the “Chanukah by the Sea” event begins at Archer Park, a small, grassy area at the back of Bondi beach. The park is just north of Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving club, and has several small shelters for picnics and a children’s playground. Chanukah by the Sea is a regular event for Bondi’s large Jewish community, to mark the beginning of the religious festival. The event has been advertised on social media.

Video from the event shows a carnival atmosphere, with families in attendance and activities for kids, including a petting zoo.

Australia suffered one of the deadliest massacres in its history on Sunday when two gunmen opened fire on a Jewish celebration

• Bondi beach shooting live updates

• Full report

• Victims named so far

Australia experienced one of its deadliest mass shootings in its history on Sunday when two gunmen opened fire on a Jewish celebration at Bondi in Sydney. At least 16 people are dead, including one of the alleged killers.

Here is what we know so far:

On Sunday at 6.47pm local time, police and emergency services were called to Archer Park next to Sydney’s Bondi beach after reports of gunshots.

Footage shared on social media showed two gunman firing continuously at a large group who had gathered to celebrate the Jewish festival of Hanukah.

At least 16 people are dead, including one of the alleged shooters. Among the dead are holocaust survivor Alexander Kleytman, London-born rabbi Eli Schlanger, French national Dan Elkayam, businessman Reuven Morrison, retired police officer Peter Meagher and a 10-year-old girl. Police believe the oldest victim is 87.

Forty-two people were taken to hospital after the attack. At 9.30pm local time on Monday, there were 26 people in Sydney hospitals. Seven were in a critical condition, five were in a critical but stable condition and 14 were in a stable condition.

Two police officers were among the injured and were both in a critical but stable condition.

Police said they were treating the attack as an act of terrorism.

The alleged gunmen were a 50-year-old, who was shot by police and died at the scene, and his 24-year-old son, who suffered critical injuries and was taken to hospital under police guard where he remained on Monday.

Police have not named the alleged gunmen, but media have identified them as Naveed Akram and his father, Sajid Akram.

Naveed Akram is an Australian-born citizen, the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said. His father arrived in 1998 on a student visa, transferred in 2001 to a partner visa and, after trips overseas, had been on resident return visas three times.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the son first came to the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) in October 2019. He was examined “on the basis of being associated with others”.

New South Wales police and the director general of Asio, Mike Burgess, said one of the shooters was known to authorities, “but not in an immediate threat perspective”.

The NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, said the father was a licensed firearms holder with six guns.

Bomb disposal experts removed two active improvised explosive devices from the scene. Police said on Monday a third IED was located at Bondi.